Alchemists and Anarchy
by ShootingStarNeoEevee
Summary: Preventing apocalypse doesn't always mean you can just kick back afterwards. When three Digimon show up on the Elrics' doorstep, Ed and company find themselves launched into their biggest adventure yet. ::ON HIATUS::
1. The Trainwreck Begins

**I can't believe it. I really can't. Months and months of work and it's finally... here. I actually finished it! **

**Ah well, I'll go celebrate later. For now, know this: this fanfic is an AU, because it was written **_**before the manga ended,**_** and I'm**_** not**_** gonna change it now. Nope, no way. So this fanfic ****is officially an AU****, as **_**Ed still has his alchemy powers and the automail on his arm**_**. But everything else is kind of... the same; Roy used the Philosopher's Stone to restore his eyesight, same people are dead, same people are alive, etc. Except now we have Digimon. But I can't shake the feeling that something's missing from this first chapter... something that would make it suck less...**

* * *

**Ah well. That's what updated rewrites are for. *pulls out her sword and points it forward* ON WITH THE FIC!**

* * *

A word to the wise: dimensional travel is the most difficult of any kind of magic, and should be left to experts. The alchemic circles required are incredibly complicated, and God help you if you get one character of the ridiculously long coordinate sequences wrong. One miscalculation, and you could end up in a dimension full of shrimp with half your limbs missing, half an idea how you got there and no idea how to get back. Therefore, dimensional travel should only ever be attempted by the experienced, or the incrediblely desparate.

And the Digimon attempting it now were definitely desperate.

A Terriermon, nicknamed Fletcher (most Digimon were nicknamed, to distinguish between indiviuals of the different species), stood up from the part of the transmutation circle he'd been drawing. He was, by all means, a fairly ordinary Terriermon; he looked a bit like a rabbit, walking on its hind legs, with freakishly long floppy ears, that reached the ground and dragged whenever Fletcher walked (and he _hated_ that. He liked to keep his ears neat, and he despised the dirt and dust clinging to his fur). He had big, dewy eyes and a single horn in the middle of his forehead, and he was colored cream with lime green stripes. Except for an unusual concentration of yellow in his color scheme and golden eyes in place of the normal dark brown. Yes, except for those and a few other things (dehabilitating stutter, shaky paws and a nervous disposition that was rare for the usually courageous little Digimon that Terriermon were), Fletcher was quite normal.

"H-hey Vic, S-sara. I'm finished over here. What about you guys?" He asked.

The two other Digimon in the non-descript location with him were slightly more unusual. They were both part of an uncommon strain of digital monsters that closely resembled Pokemon (ironic as hell, due to certain universes where the two were rival franchises). Vic was an Eeveemon, and looked almost exactly like the Pokemon his kind were named for – tiny, rabbit-eared foxes, with brown fur and a creamy ruff around their neck to match the tips of their bushy tails. However, Eeveemon walked on their hind legs, as opposed to their Pokemon counterparts' walking (or, rather, hopping) around like a normal animal. Eeveemon were also cyborg Digimon, and each had a unique assortment of cybernetic body parts. In addition to bright gold eyes, and an odd fur-antenna, Vic had a metal right arm and left leg. Sara, on the other hand, was a Pikamon, and looked like a Pikachu (rather obviously). Pikamon were fairy Digimon, and didn't just look like the little yellow mouse with red cheeks, long ears and a thunderbolt-tail; they had little wings, and each wielded a short, simple stick topped with a star. A rather unusual anomaly with the data they were created from resulted in each having a unique power, manifesting as an attack called "Memetic Mutation". The story behind it was long, complicated, had something having to do with a place called "4chan," and was none to pleasant for those with weak stomaches.

"I'm done." Sara said.

"Same." Said Vic. He stood up very straight, barely matching the height of his two companions; he a bit smaller than the average Eeveemon (it was something he was a little touchy about). "Right, are we all ready then?" The other two nodded. Vic smiled. "Then let's go!"

He and Fletcher crouched down and put their hands (paws?) to the circle. Vic looked over at the Terriermon. "You alright?" He asked. Fletcher nodded, trying to ignore the fact that his hand-paws were shaking.. "I-I'm fine." Fletcher replied.

"Don't be scared, Fletcher." Said Vic, smiling reassuringly. "Everything's perfect."

Totally ignoring the fact that a very, very similar situation to this one caused an enormous mess that ultimately left two young brothers traumatized for life, they proceeded, starting the trasmutation; the circle started glowing.

"Do we know where we're going?" Asked Sara, as a loud wind picked up out of no where.

* * *

"Of course," Said Vic over the noise of the forming portal. "We're going home!"

Edward Elric was having a rather confusing and painful day. He was currently standing at Winry's workbench with his younger brother, and watching his childhood friend and, as of recently, girlfriend deconstruct an odd device that had fallen out of the sky while he was enjoying his week off and the tranquility of his hometown, and very nearly given her a concussion.

Said device was a white triangular shape with square wings on the sides. A strap connected the device to a small clip. On the front was a black square within a blue ring, and below it was a smaller blue ring with little arrows on it. Ed and Al had also had similar devices fall precariously close to them (Ed's had actually hit him on the head. He had been nursing the resulting, fairly large lump when Al had excitedly burst onto the second floor balcony to show his big brother what he had found), except Al's was green and white, and Ed's was gold and white. On the front of all three was what looked like some kind of array consisting of rings and circles.

"This is facsinating, I've never seen anything like this before.." Said Winry, focused intensely on her work, as she carefully removed the plastic covering on the weird device and revealed chips and circuits beneath it. They glowed eerily. "Hey Ed, do you think this might be some secret military thing?"

The Fullmetal Alchemist stared at the device, studying it. The symbol on the front had three rings, each consecutively smaller, each within the other. Four lines went out from the innermost circle in an _x, and w_here the lines crossed the circles, there was another, smaller circle around it. "...Maybe," Edward answered slowly. "It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen, but this..." He tapped the circle on the plastic cover. "makes me wonder..."

The circle lit up. It flashed briefly, and the black square on the front lit up as well. The three of them jumped back as a blinding light filled the room Suddenly, Ed felt drained and tired, and his arm tingled, as though all his energy was being channeled through it into the circle. Then, as quickly as the light came, it went.

Ed blinked spots from his eyes. He was about to ask what the hell just happened, when, all of a sudden, somebody knocked on the door.

* * *

"Wow, what happened here?" Asked Vic, slowly turning in a circle. The house he remembered spending so much time in, the precious, dreamlike time that was so far off, yet felt so close, was gone. The land around it was overgrown with grass and wildflowers, and burned timbers were strewn across the site, the charred skeleton of a home.

"Gee, I dunno, a fire, maybe?" Said Sara, looking up the old tree that she, Fletcher and Vic himself used to run around when they were just little In-Training Digimon, playing tag with their bonded humans – it definitely bore marks of a flame, like scars on flesh.

"Hey," Vic said suddenly, as a memory flashed to the surface of his mind, "I remember when you got stuck in this tree, Sara."

Fletcher and Vic grinned at each other, like the brothers they weren't. "And you wouldn't come down for like, five hours?" Said Vic. The two of them laughed. Vic only knew what the internet had taught him about the bonds between other humans, but he thought that whatever Fletcher and himself had definitely qualified as "brotherly." "H-hey, do you think Winry's at her house?" Fletcher piped up. Sara just blinked, uncomprehendingly. "Y-know, Winry. Y-you always played with her... always." She just kept looking. Then Vic at her, "You just need a little refresher is all. C'mon, you two!"

The three of them took off down the hill. To Vic and Fletcher, it was just like old times – Vic, Ed, Fletcher, Al, Sara, and Winry. Digimon and their child partners. The way it was for everyone when they were small. The way it was supposed to be.

The Digimon were part way up the next hill, stumbling on the steep climb, when Vic stopped, as though frozen. Sara looked back at him.

"You coming?" She asked. Vic stayed frozen. Then, suddenly, his body started glowing. It grew brighter, and brighter, until Vic was a little fox-shaped star. The star shifted and morphed, into a taller, humanoid form. When the light dimmed, there was a human-sized, anthropomorphic fiery fox standing where Vic was. His short, brown fur had turned orange, with a bright golden tail that flickered like fire, and to match, on the top of his head he now sported a hairstyle very similar to his partner's; bright yellow hair (or maybe it was still fur), with Edward Elric's bangs, braid, antenna and all. The outfit, too, mimiced Ed's, with the jacket and the leather pants and the bright red coat. This was not an Eeveemon; this was Flaremon, a Champion Digimon, and the evolution of flame.

"...well," Vic said, studying his new Champion-level form. "Didn't see that coming," He started up the hill again, as if nothing had happened, and he hadn't digivolved to Champion level for the first time and grown several feet, only stopping or looking back when the others didn't follow. "Hey, are you guys coming or not?"

Fletcher and Sara blinked twice out of shock, then, still surprised, followed their friend.

* * *

That entire thing took place a few minutes before the Elrics heard the knock at their door. A few minutes later, the Elrics followed Winry down to the front room. None of them had any idea who could've come calling; Granny Pinako was making a house call to a client, and there were no other appointments scheduled for that day. In all likelyhood, it was one of the other villagers. It was just a neighbor, on an errand, maybe. But for Ed, the paranoia from their last little adventure hadn't worn off quite yet. _Nothing like nearly getting killed a million times to hammer in a little caution, _Ed thought, when he realized he'd been planning on how to defend his girlfriend, his brother and himself in the unlikely case that, oh, who knew, a ninja with alchemic superpowers had come to call.

Winry opened the door, and what happened next happened very fast; Ed had time to register a fire-colored blur and a loud cry of "ED!" and his paranoid side saying _"ha, see, I was right!"_ before he was tackled to the floor.

_A minute or two earlier..._

"Do you think they'll remember us?" Asked Fletcher. _I don't want to ever forget Alphonse_, the Terriermon thought, _and I don't want to have forgotten me, but what if he _has_ forgotten? What if he doesn't recognize me? Would he want me near him or would he be alright with having a Digimon – I mean, I know everyone has one but what if Alphonse doesn't like Terriermon or thinks it's weird that I'm all yellow or-_

"I'm sure they will." Said Vic, still a Flaremon, cutting off his not-brother's frantic inner monologue and giving him a reassuring smile. He seemed to be full of energy for some reason; he'd come charging up the hill, barely winded, frolicked all the way up to the front door like a sugar-high schoolgirl, and after knocking enthusiastically (less like a sugar-high schoolgirl and more like a slightly psychotic Girl Scout hellbent on selling a box of Thin Mints) was bouncing on his heels. He looked a great deal like Edward now, if Ed has a fiery tail, large fox-like ears, and furry orange skin. Suddenly, the door opened, and Fletcher heard Vic joyously shout "ED!" before he disappeared inside the doorway.

For Ed, he would later look back on this and decide that getting glomped by Vic was a bit like getting jumped on by himself, albeit a furry version of himself. And Vic was now nuzzling him happily, his rough, warm fur brushing Ed's cheeks, while gushing something about how "it's been so long" and "missed you so much." Of course, Ed would only learn Vic's name and that the Digimon had been not trying to kill him, but instead was very happy to see Edward himself, sometime later. Right now, Ed was being hugged and cuddled while he flailed around and tried to hit or shove off or do _something_ to the thing that had him in what, to Ed, seemed like a bear hug meant to restrain him while a knife was shoved in his back. Finally, Ed managed to push Vic back, and hurriedly trasmute one of the plates on his auto-mail arm into his trademark blade. "What are you?" He demanded, aiming the blade at the orange furry thing, which to him looked incredibly bizarre, with the way it looked like him, only furry and with freakishly huge eyes.

Mr. Furry Orange Thing didn't fight when Ed pushed him off. Instead, he sat back, with his head cocked to one side. Ed studied the odd creature, scrutinizing it – he didn't know what this fuzzy duplicate of him was, or why it had jumped him, but it didn't look angry or scared or anything else that might've lead it to act aggressively. But it did look a bit... hurt. Hurt and confused, in a way that looked almost... human.

"Ed, you don't remember me?" It asked. It was male, judging by the voice. He had a very open way of speaking, like he was talking to a close friend. "I mean, I look a bit different right now, but it's me, Vic. Remember?"

Ed opened his mouth to say something. Exactly what, he didn't really know. No, possibly.

But he didn't say that, because he _did_ know the weird look-a-like sitting across from him. Sort of. Something deep inside of him knew. An old memory, from a long, long time ago. Ed _did_ know him... no, not him, Vic. But how? The little talking fox called Vic had been an imaginary friend he had made up, something Ed had forgotten after the nightmare of that failed transmutation, and concluded was nothing but part of a game, or a dream, when he'd grow older. But here Vic was, sitting just across from him, solid and tangible as Winry or Al was. Vic was a little different than Ed had imagined him – he was much taller, and bright orange – but something within Ed told him this was his old imaginary friend. It was like there was a tiny, invisible string that connected the two of them.

Vic saw the flash of recognition on Ed's face. "You do remember! I told Sara and Fletcher you would!" The Digimon embraced Ed, overjoyed, as his body began to glow again. He shrank, becoming lighter and smaller, until he had reverted to his Rookie form; the small, brown fox with metal limbs, a creamy ruff, and long ears. "Ah," Ed said, dumb with surprise. Vic was looking a bit more familiar now. But this was all still so _strange_... "I think... I remember. But.. you're not supposed to be real."

Vic jerked a thumb at the door. "Neither are they." Ed looked over Vic to see a big, long-eared, yellow mouse and a white rabbit with long ears and green stripes standing shyly in the doorway. Al and Winry followed his gaze, and soon joined Ed in his surprise.

"_What the_ _hell_?" Ed asked, "...did I hit my head harder than I thought?"

"Oh, that's right." Vic laughed, a tad nervously, "I guess I should explain."

"Like hell you should," Ed grumbled, shifting and nudging Vic off of him, then standing up and reverting his arm-blade to its natural state as an armplate.

"So, there it is."

Artemis, a Lunamon, was pointing at the large mountain in front of the little group. As a Lunamon, she looked a lot like a rabbit, if rabbits were pearly white; walked on their hind legs; and had an extra set of ears (which were tipped with purple, and didn't look much like rabbit ears to begin with); a curly antenna that faded to purple at it's tip; a crescent moon mark on their foreheads; large hands tipped with black, blunt, claw-like fingers and also marked with cresent moons; a pink ribbon looped around the neck and fastened over the chest with a large brooch adorned another crescent moon; and no legs; just translucent, dresslike skin that hovered and shifted across the ground.

Artemis's two companions were a Lunamon, this one with a straighter, golden antenna and mahogany colored eyes (which were highly unusual for the species. Lunamon usually bore color schemes of whites, blues and violets, with little pink and yellow accents. Warmer colors were almost unheard of), and a Coronamon; a little fiery lion cub-like Digimon with red-orange fur and a sort of metal headpiece that eminated a flame. This particular Coronamon had black tiger stripes criss-crossing his body – his own personal defining mark. The two had hired her as a guide to assist them in finding three other Digimon, who they would supposedly find at a place where it was easy to jump between worlds. Why these two wanted to find them, Artemis didn't know or care. But if the target Digimon were doing what she thought they might be doing, things were probably going to get interesting.

"That's one of the biggest dimensional weak points in the entire Digital World." Artemis continued. As she spoke, her comrades watched as the sky seemed to shift and bend around the dark peak, like a bubbling, boiling sea. Images, ghostly pictures of other worlds, flickered across the bright, bald blue expanse.

"You think they went there?" Asked the other Lunamon with the mahogany eyes and golden antenna; this one was named Blue Aurora (and usually just went by "Aurora"). Artemis shrugged in response.

"I don't know these guys, but if I was trying to jump to another world, it's the first place I would try." Artemis replied. She had a strange voice. It was musical, but with an odd, slightly raspy accent to it; an accent that pronounced the _W_'s as _V_'s.

"Right." Aurora stared at mountain's summit and squinted. Was something going on up there?

Yes, there was; lightning was going on. Blue lightning flashed around the peak, the color of it a signature sign of alchemic transmutation.

"Something's going on up there!" Shouted the Coronamon, who was simply called Corona.

_No duh, Sherlock. _Thought Aurora. She would've said this out loud, except her conscious just realized the connection her subconscious had made a minute ago.

"Oh God, they're already doing it!" She cried. "They're making the jump!"

Artemis cocked her head to one side. "And what's so bad about that?"

A dramatic wind picked up as the sky seemed to shatter, and the blue lightning formed a sort of bridge to nowhere in the middle of the sky. "You know what happens when you make a crack in a pane of glass?" Aurora demanded, over the wind. Loud cracks, snaps and booms filled the air, like thunder. "It's kind of like that. No, exactly like that. This kind of transmutation is a fairly crude way of getting around, and it makes a sort of crack between dimensions. When you make a crack between dimensions, the crack just gets bigger until the whole pane shatters. It gets worse when you try to push something _through_ the crack."

Aurora then looked back at the mountain, trying to discern what she could from this distance. They were far too late to try and intervene now. "And those cracks have rather... unpredictable effects on things around them." She added apprehensively as the thunder grew louder, and the cracks in the sky spread. "We should get away from here."

Artemis waved a hand-paw dismissively. "We're far enough away, I'm sure we're fine."

Corona suddenly smacked his hand-paw against his face. "Oh, you just_ had _to say it, didn't you?"

"What?" Artemis asked.

"_I'm sure we're fine. _That's one of the most common fate-tempting phrases EVER! Now that you've said it, some bad IS going to happen!" Corona shouted.

"That only happens in stories." She scoffed. "You've been on that TV Tropes website too much."

Unfortunately, this little exchange distracted them from a crack opening in the ground, as a final boom, the loudest of all, resounded through the sky. The world shattered, exactly like the pane of glass Aurora described, and the three Digimon all slipped and fell through.

The three of them landed in a narrow, dark alley. Corona was the first to recover.

"I told you so!" He said.

"Oh, shut up," Artemis snapped. She got up from her sprawled position on the cobblestone ground and looked around. They were in a rather old-fashioned-looking city that was painted in beiges and blues. A lot of the buildings looked new, like they were built recently, and more cobblestones paved the streets. "Where are we?" Artemis wondered.

Corona took a look at their surroundings. "Some kind of alley way. Outside of that, no idea." _Once more, way to go, Captain Obvious. _Aurora thought.

Then, Aurora jumped up, shushing them both. "We shouldn't be so loud." She whispered. "There are people here."

Instinctively, the other two Digimon looked around, and froze on the spot when they saw a pair of humans in blue and gold military uniforms. The two men had seen them, and now that the initial shock was wearing off, they were shifting to a very common human reaction to something otherworldly; get rid of it.

"_RUN!" _Aurora yelled, and all three Digimon made a mad dash for their lives.

It was a strange thing, meeting someone you'd known so well, after so long, when you'd almost forgotten about them. You used to be able almost read each others thoughts, and now you really don't know what to say, but the years put themselves between you, like brick walls, and there's an awkward silence as you try to get around them.

Al was the one who finally broke it. "So, if you're not just part of our imagination, what are you?" He asked the three weird little animal-like creatures.

"We're Digimon," Vic responded, "that's short for digital monsters. We're like little parts of a human's spirit, or heart or soul or whatever you want to call it. We manifest in our own world, and it's made of computer data, which is why you don't see us around here all that often. There are different kinds of us, too. I'm an Eeveemon, Fletcher is a Terriermon, and Sara's a Pikamon. There are hundreds of different Digimon, all made of different kinds of data."

Al blinked, not expecting that response, and decided not to ask just what a "computer" was yet. "So why did we see you when we were kids?" Vic continued, clearly eager to share.

"That happens to everyone. No one's quite sure why. But," Vic, gathering steam now, held up a finger to emphasize his point. "I do have a theory. As I just said, Digimon, are as much a part of the soul as they are data. The data is just how they manifest physically, and how their abilities manifest, but the soul part gives each Digimon a connection to a human, and there's something about a child's soul and mind that let's them see them, or meet them in dreams, kind of like an imaginary friend. It's when they get older and their minds become more grounded in reality that the connection fades. It's still there, but barely, and the memories fade out of focus.

"But sometimes, in a rare few cases, the link stays strong. And other times, only one of them remembers the other. I think what causes the latter is a sudden cutoff, or reality snap, brought on by heavy trauma. That's why I remember you, Ed." Vic smiled. Trauma or not, he was glad he remembered Edward.

Ed nodded, but it was a fake nod. He remembered playing with a little animal called Vic – exploring with Al and Winry while a little, brown, talking fox hid in jacket, and once – maybe once – he could remember watching the moon and stars outside with his tiny friend, in the deepest hour of night.

But that piece of his childhood come back to haunt him, after all that had happened; the transmutation, Father, the Homoculi... this was too much.

Suddenly, the phone rang, snapping them out of a kind of trance. A phone ringing was something ordinary, and seemed to contrast so sharply with the sudden arrival of the Digimon. "I'll get it." Said Winry, sounding a bit relieved. She got up, and after a short, clipped exchange with whoever was on the other end, called, "It's for you, Ed. Someone from the military."

Edward went into the kitchen and took the phone from Winry, puzzled. He was on vacation, why was he getting a call now? He took a minute to push old memories back into the depths of his mind. He'd think more on the Digimon issue later. "Fullmetal here," He said into the receiver.

This, Winry thought, as she walked back into the living room, was turning out to be a very unusual day. First the little Digimon creatures showed up, now Ed was getting a call from the military during his downtime. She avoided eye contact with the Digimon as she sat back down, then suddenly threw a suspicious look at them. Vic and Fletcher looked away, but Sara looked back, staring at Winry with a blank, disappointed sadness.

Then Ed walked back into the room. "They've found something in Central. They want me to come in and help out." He said tensely.

Al gave him a questioning look. "What'd they find?"

"They didn't say," Ed replied, irritated. "but it sounded like it was some weird animal. And since I've dealt with some weird things before..." He trailed off, though Winry thought that "weird" was a bit of an understatement.

Ed stomped up the stairs, "I'll be back in a few days, we can talk more about digital monsters then." He didn't sound like he was looking forward to that discussion.

Then, Vic bolted from the couch and followed Ed up the stairs. No one said anything, and the tense silence set in again. Winry, suddenly desperate for something to distract her, dug into her pocket, pulling out the odd little device. She studied it, finding solace in the weird chips and intricate mechanics, and relaxed a little. At least this was something she could understand... or try to. It was unlike anything she'd ever seen before.

A thought struck her, and Winry looked up at Sara. Could this thing be related to the Digimon? As if to answer, the black square in the center lit up and a holographic circle spread out from it. Winry jumped, and dropped it. The circle vanished as it hit the floor, and Sara perked up and stepped forward to examine it. "A Digivice?" She asked, as Winry scooped up the device. The circle appeared again, displaying a picture of Sara with the word "Pikamon" written under it in big, bold letters. Smaller texts were written around it, saying things like "attack points" and "special attacks".

"Wow..." Winry whispered, incredulous. She took her other hand and tried to trace the letters, watching as her hand went right through them.

"These are legendary..." Sara said, "They symbolize the connection between a human and partner! Did we cause..." She stopped, and looked up at Winry. Winry slowly drew back and slipped the Digivice into her pocket again. She'd been right...

"_Hell no!"_ Came a sudden shout from the stairs, making both Winry and Sara jump. Ed was yelling at Vic, Winry noted with an odd satisfaction. _"You aren't coming with me!"_

And so Edward left on the next train to Central (Winry and Al saw him off. The Digimon stayed at the house. Ed didn't see Vic the entire time, but thought nothing of it; this was a big mistake). He sat down on one of the seats, only to feel a prod on the back of his leg.

Ed looked down. Vic was under the seat. Or at least, he _thought_ it was Vic. This sickening cute little fox looked like the Eeveemon, but smaller (which was saying something, as Vic was pretty small already) and without the metal limbs. It was exactly like the Vic of his childhood.

"Vic?" Ed asked, quietly so as not to alert the other passengers. Something hit him when he saw Vic like this; surprise, coupled with nostalgia, like a swift squeeze to his heart, coupled with an electric shock.

"Yup!" Said the smaller Vic, just as quietly. "I stowed away in your suitcase! I had to de-digivolve to fit in, but I snuck out as soon as you put it in the luggage compartment."

"..."

"Ed? You're mad, aren't you?"

And, in the end, despite his best efforts, Edward did alert the other passengers. Witnesses later described the enraged strangled howl as a bit like a cat being horribly violated.

"Well, this sucks."

"...Thank you, Captain Obvious."

So said Corona, and so Aurora responded. They, together with Artemis, had been caught due to the military's superior numbers, as well as size; it's very hard for a tiny Digimon to take on a fully grown human, even with their powers, when said human has about sixty friends and all of them are armed with guns. The three of them been knocked out, and when they awoke they were each in their own individual cages, which they had discovered had been alchemically fortified when they tried to either melt or freeze their way out. Then, hours later, just when Corona was getting sick of Artemis vocalizing whatever bits of datastream she'd tapped into (very boring talk radio, with the only interesting story being about a man who wanted to marry a sheep), the door opened, and humans in blue uniforms and white labcoats walked in.

"Roy!" Corona called, joyously. It was indeed Roy Mustang, who looked considerably alarmed at being addressed by what appeared to be a small, flaming tiger with overly-large eyes and proportions that could only be described as cartoon-ish; and by his first name, no less.

"Hey, Roy!" Corona continued, "It's me, Corona! Remember me? Er, I bet you don't, but it's me!" But Roy seemed to be pretending not to hear him, even when Corona started shouting louder.

"Why exactly am I here again, Dr. Stein?" Roy asked over the noise, "I'm not exactly an expert in bio-alchemy, and what we're looking at is clearly the result of that."

Dr. Stein replied without taking his eyes off the Digimon, studying them intently. "Well, these are simply too advanced to be one of our experiments. And, Colonel Mustang, given the events of last year's little... incident, " If you could call it little, what with everyone in Amestris getting their souls sucked out and then put back in, and Roy nearly losing his eyesight, amongst other things... "we thought you might know something about this. Perhaps it's one of that Father character's leftover creations?"

Corona was now trying a different tactic to catch Roy's attention. Since yelling didn't work, Corona had moved on to making faces at him.

"This really doesn't seem like his style, though, doctor." Roy answered, recalling the chimeras Mei Chang had told him about, in the days after the final battle; the ones that guarded the tunnels to Father's lair. "The chimeras under Central would look like monsters, so to scare people off. These things are too... cute."

"HEY!" Corona snapped, loud enough to throw them off their guards and _make _them pay attention to it. "Who're you calling cute? I'm a ruthless fighting machine, just watch!" He then started gnawing on the bars of his cage, while Aurora's palm said "hello" to her face.

"...those chimeras weren't capable of human speech either." Roy added, as Corona tried to burn his way out again with spinning wheels of flame, all of which fizzled out harmlessly.

Suddenly, one of the aides appeared at the door. "Dr. Stein, Colonel Mustang?" She said. "The Fullmetal Alchemist has arrived. He'll be here in a moment." And, as she said, in a few minutes, Edward was there.

"Well," Edward asked. "what do we have here?"

"Fullmetal," Said Roy. "Do you have any idea what these things might be?"

Ed took a good, long look at the captive creatures. An orange one was making faces once more, and was either trying to make flames or flip them off, a white and purple one that looked like a rabbit looked both annoyed and embarrassed, and another white and purple one that looked incredibly similar to the first purple and white one was ignoring everything around it, and seemed to be humming an odd little tune. There was something a little niggling in the back of Ed's mind that he knew what these things were, and yet...

_They're Digimon too,_ said a little voice in his head, soft but familiar.

...hold up. What the hell was that?

At the end of the day, the investigation yielded no results. Ed rubbed his templed, frusterated. None of the Digimon (if the first sign of his coming insanity was correct) would let them get close enough to touch them, and that meant no physical examinations. But, they would be doing it again tomorrow, with tranquilizers, if necessary.

Ed went back to the military's hotel. As much as he would have liked to pretend the Eeveemon wasn't there, he would have to talk to Vic about this. Once there, however, he got another surprise.

"Winry, Al? What're you doing here?"

His childhood friend and brother were standing beside the front desk. The both of them had suitcases and their Digimon with them, though Sara and Fletcher both looked strangely limp and seemed to be trying not to blink, like they were trying to pass off as dolls.

"We thought you might need ... some help." Said Al, but the way he said it, the pause, and the subtle "this is important" look on his face clearly implied some other reason behind it. They didn't say anything else until Ed had led them back up to the room.

"Alright," Edward demanded. "why are you really here?"

"Vic told us to come," Said Fletcher. "Well, he told me to come. I mean – uh, he didn't say it really, I kind of felt it... we... uh, share a kind of bond most Digimon don't have, we can do that." He added, stuttering as everyone looked at him. Edward listened, suddenly fascinated.

"...you can talk to each other without having to be there?" Ed inquired, "Like some kind of telepathy telepathy?"

"More of a feeling than anything." Fletcher replied with a shrug, flushing.

"And you didn't tell us this... why?"

"We thought you'd already know." Fletcher looked over at Vic, embarrassed. "Like I said, it's not a common kind of thing, so we'd thought it had something to do on your end, right Vic?"

"Right," Vic confirmed. "being able to communicate with the mind, or heart or whatever, is commonplace between a Digimon and partner, but a Digimon-to-Digimon link like that doesn't happen unless that kind of bond already exists between between their own partners." He sounded like he'd recited it out of a text book, as though he'd memorized what he was going to say. Vic did that a lot, Ed noticed, and the long speeches were kind of irritating.

Wait, Ed remembered now. He and Al were connected through their souls, and had been that way ever since they'd added their blood into their botched transmutation of their mother; ever since Al had regained his body, Ed could recall instances where he felt what his brother was feeling, especially in those first days after Al was restored to flesh and blood. Ed had felt incredibly drained while his brother was recovering from severe malnourishment, and Al had told him of times when he could feel a kind of blissful, fluttering feeling in his chest that he somehow knew didn't belong to him (Ed later realized Al got this feeling when Edward himself was alone with Winry. He had resolved not to mentioned this to anyone). Their bond ran much deeper than that of normal siblings, so would their Digimon share that?

And speaking of bonds...

"I heard a voice in my head when I was looking at the things they captured," Ed remembered. "it said they were Digimon. Was that you, Vic?"

The Eeveemon cocked his head to the side. "Might've been. I know I felt other Digimon earlier today, other than Sara and Fletcher, I mean, but I don't remember seeing them myself. What'd they look like?"

Ed called up images from earlier that day in his mind. "One of them was loud, and annoying, and it looked like a bright, orange, cartoon lion, or tiger, or something. It had this circlet on it's head, it might've been metal, but we couldn't get close so we couldn't be sure. It talked a lot, and it kept trying to catch Colonel Mustang's attention." He paused and then quickly described Mustang for the Digimon. Vic looked thoughtful. "Did the orange tiger have black stripes?" He inquired.

Ed thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, it did."

"And did it look like it was on fire?"

"It did, but it wasn't radiating heat, outside what's normal for a living creature."

The three Digimon exchanged a look. "It's Corona." They said together.

"Who's Corona?" Asked Al, looking curious.

"Corona," Fletcher replied, "is a species of Digmon called a Coronamon; he's a friend of ours, and from the sound of it, he's the partner of your friend Mustang."

"...wait, Mustang has a Digimon too?" Asked Ed.

"Everyone does. Vic already said that." Sara said in her quiet voice. "If that was Corona, then the 'white rabbit' must've been Aurora." She looked up, and quickly added, "She's a Lunamon. She can be a bit harsh, but she isn't all bad, really. And she and Corona are quite close. But I don't know," Sara paused and looked thoughtful, "who that other Lunamon is."

"What they're doing here is the bigger question." Vic interjected. "Unless..." He trailed off, looking thoughtful.

"What?" Ed interrogated, a thousand questions in his mind, and the intent to ask every one before Vic got sidetracked by the sound of his own voice. But exactly what "unless" meant, he would never find out, because at that moment a loud, bellowing, roar snapped them out of their thoughts.

"...what was that?" Asked Winry slowly as Vic leapt over to the window. The little Digimon pressed his nose to the glass. "Not good," Vic said, his golden eyes growing wide. "this is not good at all!"

"What?" Asked Ed, moving over to the window. Vic was hooking his paw-fingers under the window sill. "Ed," he said. "I'm gonna need your help for this. Meet me outside. Bring the Digivice!" He opened the window. "The what?" Ed asked. "The little plastic thing!" Vic exclaimed before jumping out the window.

Ed watched as Vic landed, several stories below, with no harm done to him. Then, another roar, closer than the first, resounded across Central. "Stay here," Ed told Winry and Al as he made sure the Digivice – that was what it was called, apparantly - was still in his pocket and ran out of the room.

_This is getting _too_ weird_, Ed thought as raced out the door and down the street. It was night, and there weren't many people out, so he wouldn't have to worry as much about getting spotted. The confusion, puzzlement, frustration, all the emotion from earlier was back with a vengence now. A so-called imaginary friend showed up at the door, turned out to be a digital monster, and these Digimon could sense each other and talk with their minds, and change shape and use the elements and who only knew what else-

Then, a giant reptilian shadow loomed in view. Edward stopped dead. "No way," he said to himself, "no way in hell..."

He'd found the thing that had made the roar.

**Well, how was it? Did it suck? I hope not, but as I created this steaming pile of crossover I am unfit to make the final judgement. Leave a review, tell me what you like, what you hated, or ask why the hell I wanted to make something like this in the first place. Whatever, there's more on the way, and if it was terrible you don't have to read more/the trope It Gets Better exists for a reason/I'm doing my best/generic comment here. This is Neo, signing off~**


	2. The Plot Gets in Gear

**Story in a minute. Author's notes first.**

**First, let me just say I'm so glad at how well this whole thing was received! ^^; I have zero confidence in my writing... that's a big thing for me. Thanks, you guys!**

**Anyway, the model of Digivice used in this fic is, in fact, a D-Arc/D-Power from the third season of Digimon, in case you couldn't tell from my amazing powers of description. And yes, Vic is named after Vic Mignogna. I... don't know what I was thinking when I named him. Or Sara. Or Fletcher. But hey, if you're hating the Digimon nicknames... it's gonna get worse. Much worse. **

**But not in this chapter. XD On with the fic! **

Winry shifted slightly on the couch. She hated having to stay behind when Ed went out to fight, but she had to admit – what could she do? They would just have to trust each other to get out alive. They'd agreed after the battle in Central two years ago – Ed would always come home, and Winry would always be there, waiting for him.

Fletcher chuckled, awkward and nervous, like he was trying to deliberately trying to break the silence. "Reminds me of the one time we got lost in the forest," the Terriermon said quietly to Al, "I remember your mom and Winry's mom yelling at us for hours."

Al's eyes widened. He did remember that, he realized. It had been back when Winry's parents had still been alive; Winry, Ed, and he gone farther into the woods than they were allowed and lost their way. Their parents had gone to search for them as it had gotten dark, and after the scary part of being a small child lost in a dark forest was over, they'd gotten in trouble for going to far in the first place. "You were there?"

Fletcher smiled, "The whole time," His voice grew a little stronger, "we were always there when you were little. Do you remember how you were grounded for a week?"

"Uh-huh. I always wondered how we lived through that one... Mom took all our books, and we would've died of boredom."

"That was because Vic and I were there!"

Fletcher laughed – a high-pitched noise, almost like a dog's yip – and finally looked at ease. Al was smiling, lost in nostalgia, while Sara and Winry just watched.

"I can't remember anything like that..." Sara said softly.

Winry didn't say anything, instead changing the subject. "Do you think Ed'll be alright? We don't know what's out there, after all."

"Vic'll know how to handle it." Sara replied, "He always does. He got us here, after all."

"Yeah," Fletcher finally seemed to have relaxed a little, "he's smart. Like Ed, I guess." He added.

Ed was being stared down by an enormous dinosaur. It stood upright on two legs almost the size of the houses it was next to, with arms almost too big for its build that ended in claws as long as Ed's arm. Its eyes glowed red, its dark gray skin was stretched taunt across its muscles, and black stripes crisscrossed its head and back. Horns erupted on its skull over its eyebrows, and a long white mane, matted and tangled, covered its neck.

And Ed could only stop and stare. Was this another Digimon?

"Ed!" A familiar voice called. Vic appeared from an alley way, seemingly out of thin air. "There you are!"

Ed just kept staring at the giant dinosaur, ignoring his partner. The giant wasn't moving or anything; it was just standing there and watching them.

"This," said Vic, coming to stand between the monster and Ed and indicating the former with a gesture, "is a Growlmon. He's a virus type, but the entire line is, and they're normally very gentle. We don't have to worry."

Ed was still speechless. Vic kept going. "Hey!" He shouted to the dinosaur. "Heeey! Down here!"

The Growlmon looked down. Vic was still talking. "Uh, are you here for a reason of some kind? Because you're kind of conspicuous out here. It'd be easier on a lot of us if you could, er, de-digivolve. The people here don't see giant monsters a lot and you're really easy to..."

Ed could see this was going badly. The Growlmon was tensing. Then, in a moment of sickening horror, it opened its mouth and bellowed.

Vic jumped back as his partner transmuted his arm plate into the pointed blade. As Ed slashed forward, the Growlmon drew its head back, out of harm's way. Then it parted its jaws again – no sound came out, but this time a red light grew between its teeth.

"Get back!" Vic shouted, barreling into Ed's legs with a surprising amount of force for something so small, and knocking him out of the way just as a laser beam erupted from the giant Digimon's mouth, making a crater in the street where they had been standing.

"What was that?" Ed asked, his heart pounding. If Vic had been a second slower...

"A special attack. All Digimon have them." Vic answered, getting up and preparing for a fight.

"And you're telling me this NOW!" Chalk another one up for the list of things Ed would make the Eeveemon explain later... if they lived.

"No time! Look alive!"

The Growlmon suddenly rushed them, moving like a freight train. One of the claws swiped at Ed and Vic, who both jumped out the way before it could hit them.

"Something's wrong!" Vic said as the Growlmon wheeled around for another laser from its mouth. "The entire Guilmon digivolution line are normally never violent unless provoked!"

But Ed had no time to question what that meant. The giant came in close again, and this time they had to dodge out of the way of crushing feet as well as the giant talons. One of its feet came down inches from Ed's own foot as Ed himself ducked to avoid the claws.

"How do we stop this thing?" He asked his partner, who, being smaller, was practically dancing in and out of the larger Digimon's limbs.

"We can't with this level of power!" Vic shouted back, catapulting off of a foot and ricocheting off a claw, making the Growlmon rumble deep and loud in its chest from frustration and anger. "Ed, look out!"

Ed had stayed in one place to watch the littler Digimon, and the the dinosaur's wild fury at being unable to catch Vic was taking hold of what little reason was left in its mind. Suddenly, one of its talons was swinging towards Ed.

Ed saw it coming. His golden eyes snapped onto he the claw, and his subconscious recognized it before his body could react. He wouldn't be able to move in time, Ed realized, and he could only watch at it came closer and closer-

Then a bright light came from Ed's pocket, and Vic started glowing like when he had reunited with Ed, only now instead of shrinking, he was growing into a humanoid size and shape. "Eeveemon," came Vic's voice through the light as well as in Ed's mind, "digivolved to Flaremon!"

A familiar flame-colored blur lept in front Edward, defending his human partner but also absorbing most of the force behind the swinging claw. The blur barreled into Ed, blowing them both back, and resolved into the anthropomorphic fire-fox form that Ed had first encountered Vic in.

"What was-?" Ed began, only for Vic to stop him mid-sentence. "Fight first, talk later!" Vic said, springing off his partner and facing the Growlmon. "This is some kind of shadow Digimon! It won't listen to reason!"

_And you realize this now..._ Ed thought.

The two took off, launching themselves at the monster. Vic put his hands together like he was holding a two-handed sword, "_Flame Whip!_" He shouted, raising his hands above his head and bringing them down. A string of flame appeared in Vic's hands, twining around the Growlmon's neck. It growled, roared, and shook its head, shattering the flame whip. It brought its claws around. Ed, seeing an opening, leapt forward and tried kicking at its exposed side. The bigger Digimon turned its attention to Ed, only to whip its head around at Vic again. The Growlmon roared, confused, and thrashed its tail, destroying buildings and hitting the Digimon-human pair in the process.

"Still not working. Maybe... we should try working together." Vic said, as he was the first to recover from the tail's attack.

"Oww..." said Ed. "Alright. If it'll just get angry if we both just go at it like that, let's try something else..."

"Like what?" Vic asked, helping his partner to his feet and out of the wreckage.

"Baiting it." Ed said, matter-of-factly. "C'mon, follow me!" Vic's metal paw-hand still around his wrist, he took off down the street. "You go down that way." He said, pushing his Digimon partner down an alley way.

"Just attack when you see an opening."

Ed stood in the center of the road. The Growlmon was standing in the rubble it had made a minute ago, sniffing for them.

Ed took a deep breath. "HEY, UGLY!" He shouted. The Growlmon snapped up, turning to him, before bellowing and charging.

_This is crazy, _said the little, logical part of Ed's brain that was still processing what was going on. _Vic's crazy. That thing's crazy. I'm crazy. I'm putting my faith in an imaginary friend I had when I was four. _

The Growlmon was upon him now, and Ed could feel death coming once more. He shut his eyes, as the possibility that he wouldn't get lucky again entered his mind and-

"_Flame Whip!"_

Vic came in, right on cue, wrapping the whip of fire around the monster's leg, and pulling at it with all his might. The giant Digimon overbalanced, fell and skidded into another building, destroying it in the process. "And now for the finishing strike!" Vic continued, raising his duplicate of Ed's automail arm to the sky. **"**_Alchemic Flare!_" He brought it down, making a complex rune circle that caught fire and flared high into the sky, finishing off the Growlmon.

Ed watched at the larger Digimon seemed to come apart, dissolving into little blue specs that drifted into the sky and vanished. Then he turned to his partner, who straightened as the flames and runes vanished. "Vic," he started, "that was..." The words died. He really, really could put his trust in his partner.

Vic turned around, smiled -

And collapsed.

Ed caught him before he knew what he was doing. The Digimon's body glowed and reverted to his smaller form. "Sorry," he said, "Digivolving and attacking takes energy." And then he fell asleep.

"Well, I see we have some explaining to do, Fullmetal." Said a voice behind him. Edward stood up and turned around, still holding his sleeping partner.

"Colonel Mustang," Ed said, facing him, "we need to go see those creatures that were found. And I need Lieutenant Hawkeye, Al, and Winry to be there."

The five of them were gathered in the darkness, sometime later at the testing facility. "You have no idea what it took to get us in here, Fullmetal." Roy said as he leaned against the wall- the little monster Ed was holding was still asleep, while the other little ones Alphonse and Winry had come in with were talking to the captured monsters.

What Roy had gathered from Ed was that the colorful, cartoon-y creatures were from another world, there were a lot more of them in this other world, that each creature shared a special link with a human and count be considered a part of that person, and that the five gathered here were their special-link monsters.

"The bond-thing would explain why the little orange one keeps trying to talk to me," Roy continued, "but how exactly do we know these things won't try to destroy us? That big one you fought wasn't exactly peaceful, y'know."

"Why would we try to destroy a part of ourselves?" The Terriermon Fletcher piped in. "Like you said, if we kill the people here, we kill a good part of our own numbers." He paused. "But that Growlmon, and others like it, are part of why we're here. Our world is in trouble, and we can't stop it without your help."

"But why us?" Asked Winry. "Our world suffered a terrible tragedy not long ago. It's been almost two years, and we're still not back on our feet. Our home, this country, has suffered a huge blow, and now everyone's fighting about what the right thing to do is. Why would you choose us to help?"

"Vic's idea," Fletcher replied, "Once he sets his mind on something, he won't give it up. He wasn't the only one who had the idea to have our partners help us – there are legends about humans coming to the Digital World in times of trouble, and several mons thought we could make that work again – but he was the only one who stuck with it long enough to see it through. That's why we're here."

Vic was stirring in Edward's arms. His amber eyes opened and he looked up at his partner. "I overdid it." The Eeveemon yawned, then stretched, his bushy brown tail quivering, and looked around. "What's goin' on?"

"We were just explaining stuff to our partners." Fletcher replied. "But we're going to need an answer, and..." He started and flushed a little, turning his short yellow-ish fur a peachy color, "we-we're going to need a way back to the Digital World."

"We'll find a way." Vic answered. "While we're at it, did you tell them about the Digivices?"

"Er, no." The Terriermon replied, then started explaining about the devices that had landed by Ed, Al, and Winry; they were mystical things, with many legends surrounding them, but mostly they served to symbolize the connection between a Digimon and their partner. Vic, meanwhile, went to see to the still-caged Digimon; he wanted to release them.

"Hey guys," Vic said, waving at the Coronamon and the familiar Lunamon. Corona waved back, smiling. "Hey Vic! Can you see if you can get us out here?" He said, but Aurora didn't respond with nealy as much enthusiasm. "You shouldn't have come." She asserted, speaking in a low voice. "You've done something you shouldn't have." Vic was taken aback.

"Bu-Aurora!" Vic exclaimed, "the Digital World is in trouble! We had to come here, so our partners-"

"Whether or not they can help, you've still cracked the barriers between the worlds!" Aurora went on, "Who knows what could happen now!"

Vic scowled, then looked toward the other Lunamon, his pride hurt. She was humming a little tune to herself. "Who're you?" He asked, a little harsher than he normally would have. The Lunamon stopped her humming, and looked up. "A guide," She said, her voice musical, accented and a little raspy, "someone who's roamed the Digital World for a long while, and will keep roaming for much longer than she should. My name is Artemis, the huntress." She finished her speech with a wide, toothy grin; her teeth were much bigger, pointier, and sharper than they should've been.

Vic spotted a light glint of gold in the Lunamon's hand. "Wait, what's that?" He asked.

Artemis flinched and drew away, hiding the thing. "Nothing," She answered, defensive.

"It's something." Vic said, drawing up closer to the cage. "I just want to look, I won't touch it."

"No!" Artemis yelled and snapped at Vic's fingers; teeth met fur, and sank into the flesh beneath. Horror-struck, Vic pulled his hand-paw away. The bite wound didn't bleed, but it fizzled and almost – _pixellized _when he looked at it.

"Everything alright over there?" Riza Hawkeye asked. They both jumped; Riza was so quiet they'd forgotten she was there.

"It-it's okay." Vic said, still shocked, _they were supposed to be a legend but there was one right in front of him- _"We should probably get them out of here now, and get to finding a way back. That is," He looked at Ed with pleading eyes, "If you want to."

Ed took a deep breath. "If it means saving the worlds..." he paused and looked at his brother and their best friend, "I'm in."

"I'm with Brother." Alphonse said, "I'll go with you." Fletcher smiled at this, his golden eyes sparkling.

Winry was indecisive – it was the reason she had been so quiet this whole time. On the one hand, it meant going with these strange creatures – who she still wasn't so sure about, not now that one had destroyed part of Central – but on the other hand, she was _not _going to be left behind again. Not if she was given a choice.

She stayed silent. Her partner looked down, long ears drooping in disappointment.

"I'm not so sure about this." Roy said, "We have our jobs to do here. Especially you, Fullmetal."

"And I'm staying with the Colonel." Riza added. "We _both _have jobs to do."

"Alright then," Corona said, bringing their attention back to the caged Digimon, "you're not gonna help. That's great, but could you at least _let us out of here!" _

"I can't do that," Roy said, "You're experiments. I'll be in trouble with the higher-ups if I let you out." He approached Corona's cage. Odd feelings of familiarity were starting to stir inside of him. "I'm sorry."

The Coronamon looked crestfallen, but for once didn't say anything.

Then he perked up, twitching a little. He looked like he'd just realized something. "Guys," He addressed the other Digimon, "do you feel that?"

The others sensed it too, apparently. "Another one." Vic said.

"Another what?" Riza asked, looking at the Digimon seriously.

"Digimon," Corona finished. "another one's broken through."

"Not a problem," said Vic. "We can handle it. Right Ed?"

Ed stared. On one hand, the last fight had nearly been the end of him, the end of them both, but on the other hand, they'd come through it when they'd worked together.

"Is it as big as the last one?" Ed asked. If they could detect Digimon, could they get any other information on them?

"It ...doesn't feel like it." Corona said. "But..."

Ed took a deep breath. He _had_ said he would help... "We'll do it. Just leave it to us."

Vic blinked, then smiled. Ed smiled back, and held out a hand, which the Eeveemon swung onto, landing on his partner's shoulder. "Lead the way." Ed said.

"Fullmetal," Roy interjected, "are you sure that's smart?"

Ed looked over his shoulder as he left the room. "I promised I would help these guys." He said simply.

Corona snickered. "Vic's lucky to have a partner like that."

"Left!" Said Vic, "Down that alley!"

Ed's body was behaving automatically, as though Vic's directions were bypassing his brain and going straight to his limbs. His mind was locked in mortal combat; instinct was battling reason to the death, and reason was getting owned. It didn't make sense, Ed acknowledged that, but he didn't feel anything bad coming from the little furry Eeveemon.

Plus, said instinct, as his journey had taught him, would it kill him to trust people once in a while?

Yes, said reason, it would.

"There she is!" Ed didn't process this immediately and ran headlong into a wall.

"Ow..." he said, recovering from a fairly large lump on his head. "Hey, Vic, you okay?" The Digimon had little dizzy swirls in place of his eyes, but was otherwise unharmed.

"Well, well." Said a voice. It was female, vaguely accented like Artemis's, and sounded... a little off. It was coming from above them.

Ed and Vic looked up. On the roof of the building they'd run into was a girl, around thirteen or fourteen years of age. As they looked, she slid down the roof and landed – totally unharmed, which was remarkable as it was almost a twenty foot drop – several feet to their right.

"Vic," Ed said quietly, "are you sure that's a Digimon?"

"Positive!" Vic replied. "Some Digimon can do that! Look closer,"

Ed did. And felt his stomach swoop when he looked at the Digimon-girl's eyes – the blue irises were slashed through with a slit-shaped pupil, like a snake's or a cat's, and they never left her prey as she stalked around them.

And that wasn't all.

The sides of her bright red hair were pinned up into pigtails on the sides of her head. But the pigtails weren't pigtails, they were feathery crests shaped like pigtails. Those two things make her stand out, that wrecked the sense of normality.

"Thanks for noticing," hissed the girl, dropping her disguise. In a blocky, fuzzy blur, her human form faded and something _else_, something huge and strange loomed up where she stood. A giant, avian shape stretched six, seven, eight feet above the ground, and Ed and his partner backed away as their brains processed the new monster's shape.

The Digimon stood almost nine feet above the ground. She might've looked like an ostrich or giant chicken, but it was longer, leaner, and much more graceful than that. Her feathers were deep, bloody red, and cybernetic attachments and armor plating were linked to her legs, underbelly and chest, as well as on her shoulders, extending onto the long flat feathers of her wings, and her back. A system of cables hooked the bases of her wings to the magenta colored armor on her backside, and long fins extended from her shoulders. The bottom of her beak was also armored, a single piece that extended up her jaw, in addition to a smaller fin on the nose.

The Digivice in Ed's pocket blipped. He pulled it out, and the screen projected a large circle, displaying a picture of the monster in front of them and a readout of what looked like her stats.

Asumon, he read. Champion level, not afraid to get physical. Special attack is Blood Angel Spear.

"Sounds tough..." Ed said. "We can take her."

"The last one we faced was a Champion too." Vic pointed out.

"Oh..." Ed blanched a little. "Crap."

Asumon sank into a battle stance. "You idiots! I'm nothing like ShadowGrowlmon. We might as well be totally different levels of Digimon." Ed figured out why her speech seemed no unnatural now, her mouth was ever so slightly out of sync with her voice, and something lurked behind it, like someone else was whispering along with her.

"Wait," Vic realized, "you know that Growlmon?"

"Know him?" Asumon laughed. "I sent him here! I'm the one who turned that big lunkhead into a Shadow Digimon!"

Vic stepped back, eyes wide. Ed felt the horror coming off him in empathic waves. "You-you would-"

Another laugh. "You little idiot. You have no idea what we're planning!"

Ed had no idea what they were talking about. He wanted to move, to fight, but feelings – sickening horror, revolted disgust, burning, furious curiosity - simple, powerful emotions that he was sure wasn't his were keeping him in place.

These weren't his feelings, they were Vic's, Ed realized. He was feeling what his partner was feeling.

Asumon twisted her armored beak into a smile. "That's the disadvantage of having a partner." She said. "I'll just give you two some alone time to... figure things out." The mecha-like bird put a very unpleasant emphasis on those last words.

A whorl of bright, blurring color opened beneath them, almost like the Gate, except it wasn't a giant eyeball. "Wha- what is-" But Ed never finished his sentence, because whatever they were standing on was, it wasn't solid, and he and Vic fell right into it.

Asumon assumed her human disguise again as the portal closed, changing shape from a robotic bird-creature to a normal girl, barring the feathers and vertical pupils.

_Once nuisance down, _she thought, her smile no less monstrous in this form, _five more to go. _

**All the villain Digimon were fun to write. **

**I really don't know how Vic turned into what he is, though. He was originally supposed to be The Smart Guy, like Ed. Then I made his attitude a little more laid back, then I started joking about how he's Mr. Exposition... then I realized what an annoying pain in the ass this made him and played on that.**

**In my mind, though, his heart's in the right place. He just can't shut up. xD**

**THERE, I POSTED THE SECOND CHAPTER. I'M SERIOUS ABOUT THIS. CAN I WRITE A TV TROPES PAGE FOR IT NOW? **


	3. Stuff Goes Digital, Stuff Blows Up

**-sings- Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me~ I'm fifteen today! And to celebrate, I'm going to show you that I'm not dead... Just settling in to having things to do every day. That and I had a convention to go to and there was a big rush to get costumes done. **

**So yeah. This chapter's a little shorter than the rest( seven pages instead of the usual ten). I'm going for slightly shorter chapters today. o3o**

Edward was having a very strange dream. In his dream, someone had grafted soft, golden, feathery wings to his back and thrown him off a mountain made of strawberry pudding and chocolate jello. A little voice in his head was telling him to flap his wings and fly, but Ed couldn't fly because his wings were nowhere near big enough to lift him; and even if they had been big enough, they wouldn't have done him any good, because someone had made the mistake of not connecting the muscle tissue properly, and instead made due with staples and an awful lot of scotch tape. It was unusual that the wings staying on at all, what with the god-awful job that person had done…

So Ed fell, quite helplessly, past rock faces made of strawberry pudding, which were as impossible as all ideas of flight because pudding was no where near the consistency that would be needed to form rock faces, and because _there was no such thing as strawberry pudding, dammit!_ Ed fell past cotton candy clouds, suspended in the air as impossibly as the rest of this confectionary themed dream, and in some cases, stuck to more rock ledges, made of that also nonexistent chocolate jello. Ed fell past his Digimon partner – wait, what?

"Bit of a fix we're in, huh?" The furry little Eeveemon asked casually. He'd had wings stuck on his back too. Though, from the looks of it, whoever had put them there used fewer staples and more glue to apply them.

"Tell me about it," Ed replied, rolling his eyes, as though it was everyday you got thrown off a mountain made of dessert with freaking bird wings attached to your back, like some kind of half-assed chimera. Oh, and the Digimon thing. That was important too. "What was that bird-freak talking about?" Ed asked, a little harshly when he remembered Asumon's claim of Vic working with them.

But Vic didn't answer; he just stared back at Ed… then dissolved into a mass of golden feathers.

And then, almost on cue, Edward crashed into a lake of bubblegum-flavored limes, and everything went black.

And then, because the universe wasn't finished screwing around with him, everything went blue.

The blue came from the irises of a pair of overlarge eyes.

Now, most people don't like being so close to someone else, right after they wake up. Especially when that someone looks less like a person and more like a bizarre puppy-like_ thing _with eyes far, far too big for its face.

Ed shouted and scrambled backwards, throwing the creature off him in the processThis had the effect of scaring the puppy – or rather, the four-legged, creamy-colored, dog-eared, soft-looking creature that resembled a puppy – so much, that it leapt off of Ed's chest as he pushed it away, screaming along with him in a weirdly human voice. She (Ed assumed it was a she, based on her scream's eardrum-shattering pitch) also scrambled back until they were several feet apart from one another, her legs sprawled out and her breathing heavy, before calling off into the distance, "He's awake, Carmy!"

Ed took a moment to get a grip on his surrounding. It was hard to see things that weren't close by, because the sun was setting and night was taking over the land, but he seemed to be in a dark forest clearing. Ed could make out the shapes of the tree trunks and the leaves overhead, which branched out across a gap in the foliage and limited his view of the sky; the night's first stars were out, though, and they shone bright and clear. There was no moon, Ed noted, but it might just be that it was a new moon.

But there was something beyond that… there was a shape up in the sky, that almost looked like it was behind the sky itself. Like the darkening expanse was an enormous blue glass and a giant ball had been placed behind it, Edward could see a kind of globe in the sky that was letting off streams of what appeared to be bright, glowing ribbon. Ed put a hand over his eyes, shading them in a weird, and seemingly pointless habit, seeing as how it was getting dark...

Then he stopped dead.

Edward had just noticed something off about his right arm…

Of course, the automail was still there. He'd gained that back permanently two years ago; but it was the shape that bothered him. In the twilight, Ed could see that plates and pieces were in the wrong place; the fingers were shaped wrong; no, his entire _arm _seemed to be shaped wrong, like he was stuck in the body of something small, furry, and animal-like …

Something like Vic.

Edward slowly looked down, suddenly quite afraid of what he was going to see. Gradually, as though his analytical brain was finally simply refusing to process what his eyes were seeing, Ed took in the shape of an animal standing on its back legs, the left metal hind leg that was so like - and so unlike - his own, and finally the fluffy brown fur, which lay softly all over his skin, the creamy fur around his neck like a scarf that was sewn on, and the _tail, _all bushy and brush-like-

And that was where something _snapped_. Ed screamed again – horror and confusion blending into one long note, and collapsed for the second time that day.

The puppy-thing, not really getting it, just stared at this outburst and blinked. "Never mind," she called to whomever she'd been speaking to before, "he's out cold again!"

* * *

Meanwhile, back in the plane of reality Ed would've called "the real world," Fletcher suddenly stiffened, and his pupils contracted. He glanced around, as if there was something only he could hear. The other Digimon in the room seemed to pick up on too, though not as keenly; Sara's long ears perked up, Aurora glanced around, and Corona shifted nervously.

Alphonse looked down at his partner. "Is something wrong?" He asked.

"Yeah," the Terriermon said quietly, "That other Digimon. Something's funny about it. And Vic-" Fletcher's eyes widened even more, the pitch of his voice rising, "Vic's gone! I can't sense him at all!"

Al gasped, "Did something happen to him and Brother?" He demanded.

Fletcher shook his head. "I can't tell, they're just… gone!" He stopped and looked around again, as though he was hearing some kind of dog whistle, "But- but the other Digimon-" he continued, looking very scared now, "It's coming this way!"

The whole room recoiled in shock, but Al the first to regain composure as his logical half took over. Ed couldn't be dead, that much he was certain of. After all, Al himself had passed out, back during their journey, when Ed had been impaled by a giant beam (of course, he'd really just taken his brother's word for it on that account and assumed the timing matched up…) so he'd feel it if his brother died, right? But if Ed couldn't stop the big Digimon, then...

"Fletcher, c'mon!" Al said, snatching up the little Terriermon, much to Fletcher's shock, and running to the front of the compound. "It's up to us now!"

* * *

Winry followed Al outside, with Sara the Pikamon not far behind. What could've happened to Edward? She wondered, could he have gotten hurt?

"I knew something like this would happen." Winry said to herself.

Sara, finally demonstrating use of her little purple fairy wings, fluttered up beside Winry, doing her best to keep pace. "Did you say something?" She asked.

"Nothing, nothing," Winry said, offhandedly, but Sara seemed to have gotten the gist of it. The Pikamon fell back, landed, and dashed back to the room where the other Digimon room. Winry stopped for a moment, watching the Pikamon go... but decided not to say anything, and kept following Al and his own Digimon.

* * *

Al scanned the area around the front of the military compound, looking for some kind of creature, a monster, anything out of ordinary – but everything seemed normal. "Is it going to be big, and easy to spot?" He asked Fletcher, glancing around and searching for some sign of movement.

"I don't know," Fletcher answered; he was sitting on Al's head, and helping him search. "I can really on sense-" Then he stopped and swung his head around, like a compass to magnetic north. "There!" Fletcher exclaimed, pointing.

Standing in front of them was a girl, a little younger than Al himself, who scoffed as the Terriermon indicated her. "Geez, are all you guys that _dense_?" She was standing far enough away that Al couldn't really see her in the dark, but he thought there was funny about her pigtails...

"Do some Digimon look human?" Al murmured to Fletcher, but before the Terriermon could respond, the strange girl suddenly moved, stepping forward and closing the distance faster than any normal human should've been able too. In a moment, she was up close and personal with Al, who saw, up close, her slit-pupiled eyes and the feathers disguised as normal hair.

"We carry all kinds of appearances," She said sinisterly, "Though appearances can be very _deceiving_."

Then the girl glowed – no, that wasn't the right word, Al decided. That wasn't_ light_ coming off her, it was more like... darkness. She emanated a deep violet shadows, changing into what looked like a twisted chimera; a giant red bird, with mechanical bits and pieces stuck on.

"Like it?" The Digimon asked, her voice more of a roaring screech now. Al could only stare – no chimera could match up to this – until a beeping noise, coming from one of his pockets, snapped him out of it. He dug into the pocket, taking out the odd white and green device – what had Vic called it? A Digivice? He jumped as the round holographic screen materialized; displaying the same information about the giant Digimon that it had told Ed.

"Asumon..." Al said softly, before calmly placing the Digivice back in his back pocket and taking a battle stance. "C'mon, Fletcher," He said to the terrified Terriermon that was hanging off his shoulder. "We'll beat this thing. For Ed!"

Fletcher gulped, then hesitantly slid off Al's shoulder, landing awkwardly before mimicing Al and taking a shaky stance. "R-right." He said.

Then, suddenly, there came the _ping-ping-ping _of bullets against metal. The two Digimon and the human, distracted for a moment, turned to see the guards, who had only noticed Asumon when she'd assumed her giant form, opening fire.

"Mr. Elric!" Shouted one of them, who recognized Alphonse, "It's dangerous here! You should leave the area!"

Al recoiled and Fletcher jumped back, "Wait a minute!" Al exclaimed, "This is-"

But he never got a chance to finish, because Asumon wasn't going to wait around forever. Besides, those useless little projectiles the humans were firing were getting annoying. She raised her wings, and- _"Blood Angel Spear!"_

A million glowing red spears rained down on Al, Fletcher, the guards, everyone, impaling themselves in cement and stone, but not human flesh. Al had been just in time to transmute a wall to deflect the attacks heading in their direction. "You can't fight this thing with bullets!" Al shouted, running at Asumon. She faced him, and raised her wings again, preparing for another attack.

"Alphonse, get down!" Al started, but altered his course as he heard Roy's command. As he jumped away, Al heard a definite _snap _followed by a roar of flame. Asumon screamed as feathers and metal alike burned, but then came charging again. Al grabbed his petrified Digimon partner and dodged out of the way as Roy set another wall of flame between him and Asumon. Al rolled to the side, out of harm's way, and watched the Colonel send up another fireball, and another, and another, in too quick a succession to react to, until Asumon looked both well done… and incredibly pissed off.

Asumon stamped the ground and raised her wings again, "_Blood Angel Spear!" _

Again, the luminescent red spears appeared above them. Al quickly brought his hands together and slapped them against the ground, transmuting the ground into a protective barrier again. He could feel the projectiles imbedding themselves in the rock, but thankfully, it held.

"Fletcher," he asked, and when the Terriermon didn't respond, Al shook the little Digimon and raised his voice, "Fletcher!"

"H-huh?" Fletcher stammered, finally snapping out of his frightened trance.

"Is there any way to beat this thing?" Al asked, "You're a Digimon too, do you know?"

"Um," Fletcher stuttered, peaking around the barrier, and then jumping with shock, "Oh no, Mister Mustang! _Look out!_"

Al quickly looked around the transmuted ground barrier and jumped to his feet when he saw Asumon rushing Roy. The Flame Alchemist, however, didn't budge an inch, or even blink as several hundred pounds of angry cyborg-avian Digimon barreled down on him. He just raised his hand... and snapped his fingers, cool as ice (ironic though that statement may be).

Flames exploded into being inches from Roy's nose, char-broiling Asumon, but this time it seemed to have no effect. Or rather, it was having an effect, but the Digimon was completely ignoring it. Everything seemed to slow to a halt as Asumon kept her course, set to collide with Roy in a very messy splatter-death...

And then several things happened at once. Something tripped Roy, knocking him out of the way at the last moment; gunshots rang out, and Asumon screamed again, but this time it sounded different – the first few times it sounded almost human, but now the sound was purely bestial.

Al saw his chance. "Fletcher – let's go!"

The Terriermon started, "R-right!" He said. Al charged, and hesitantly at first, Fletcher followed. Al ran in close, aiming for a chink in Asumon's armor; a spot just below the underside of her wings, where a plate on her stomach ended and left the feathered flesh exposed. With her wings raised, it was one of Asumon's few weak spots.

Al twisted and brought his leg up, letting the side kick explode outwards and hit Asumon's side. The Digimon twisted around to look at him, bringing in her neck around to snap at Al with her sharp beak. But Fletcher was on her in a flash; "T-_Terrier Tornado!_" He exclaimed, leaping into the air and spinning, faster and faster, wind whirling around him like a little twister, with his long, floppy ears extended like chopper blades. Fletcher collided with the other Digimon, hitting Asumon on the beak and grazing the unarmored spot under her wings. She recoiled with another animalistic shriek, before coming back to snap at the two of them. It was then Al saw that another chink in Asumon's armor had been exposed – her right eye had been shot out. But it didn't bleed, Al registered as he scrambled back to avoid the armored beak, it fizzled and leaked some kind of glowing dots. _But who could've shot...? _He wondered, briefly.

"We've got her on the run now!" Said a voice from a few feet away from Al, one he recognized, _"Corona Flame!" _A little volley of flame, shaped vaguely like a lion's face, rocketed forward and hit Asumon's legs. The large Digimon didn't scream, but this time turned, to face the source of the attack; Corona.

"You escaped!" Al exclaimed, watching Aurora rush up to stand beside her friend.

"No," she answered, "Colonel Duty here decided imminent destruction took priority over the study of us lab rats." She paused, scrutinizing Asumon's armor, and then calmly brought her paw around to one of her big ears. Four, tear-drop shaped shards of ice appeared in midair in front of her. Then, her paw shot out, as Aurora exclaimed, "Tear Shot!" and fired the shards into different spots on Asumon's armor. Two were aimed for a spot between the plates on her chest and around her neck, but Asumon shifted and they missed. The other two shot towards her eyes, but it was a one-in-a-million shot; one missed, but the other hit the already-injured eye, causing Asumon to scream in agony again and charge.

"Riza!" Aurora exclaimed, with all the collected calmness Roy had in a fight when he knew he'd already won, "Do what you did before! Aim for the eyes!"

Lieutenant Hawkeye, who Al had just now noticed was present, had been with the Colonel, strategizing, when Aurora called out. She looked at the Digimon, then at Roy for confirmation, before aiming her handgun at Asumon again.

This was the point at which Asumon apparently decided she was sick of being curb-stomped. Every vaguely human thought had deserted her. They had vanished after the third or fourth charbroiling. This was the point at which the simmering pot of anger Asumon constantly had on the back burner came to a boil. Then it surpassed boiling point and went ballistic, exploding in a blast of scalding anger-water and pot-related shrapnel. Asumon's eyes started glowing, and she threw back her head and screamed again, but not out of pain this time. This was a call that went towards the sky and brought down hundreds of the glowing, blood-red spears of energy.

"Take cover!" Roy shouted as he saw the spears. Al jumped back, out of Asumon's range and, for the third time that night, slapped his hands against the ground to transmute barriers. Roy, Riza, Corona and Aurora ducked back inside the compound for cover, while Fletcher stuck close to Al. Like the last few times, the spears imbedded themselves in the transmuted ground, but somehow this time was different. The spear didn't fade, but rather it glowed, sizzling, until the earth it was imbedded in was red-hot.

"It didn't do that before-" Al noted, shortly before a huge spark sent both him and his Terriermon partner flying out from under the cover of their shelter, right before Asumon came bearing down on them.

"Look out!" Fletcher shouted, and, in a moment of courage, jumped in front of his partner to defend him. "Lay off, feather-hag!"

"Fletcher!" Al cried, grabbing the Terriermon's ear and preparing to pull back and roll them both out of the way, when something none of them saw coming happened.

The Digivice that still was in Al's pocket glowed, like Ed's did when he touched the circle-like runes on the front of his own Digivice; but this time, it wasn't just the little screen – the entire circle lit up brilliantly. Fletcher glowed along with it, changing shape, and Al felt himself being somehow pulled into him. Fletcher's voice rang out, in both his mind and in the air, and somehow, Al's own voice was mixed in with it. "_Terriermon Merger digivolve to...!" _Fletcher's – no, _their_ new form straightened, taller now, and lighter, though there was an odd weight on the back of their head, _"Conemon!"_

Somehow, seeing a five-foot-tall, armored rabbit brought Asumon to her senses. Her eyes dimmed and she stopped, mid-charge, inches from their face.

"So you can do it too, huh?" She asked, eerily calm after her admittedly short berserker rampage, "And a full champion-level Merge Evolution..." She laughed, a weird chuckling-clucking noise in her throat, "The others are going to want to see this..."

Suddenly, she brought her wing around, with her feathers that were like thin, razor-sharp shards of metal. The new champion Digimon brought his arms up to defend, but the two shared minds of Al and Fletcher slipped against one another, not quite working in unison, and the motion wasn't as fast as it had to be. Armored though Conemon might've been, he couldn't avoid getting thrown into the compound wall.

"Alphonse!" Roy shouted, running forward, "Alphonse-" Al saw him hover over the rabbit-Digimon that was supposed to be him. Everything felt weird and out of focus, like he was in a dream. "What the-" But Asumon strode up before Roy could say anymore. She was still laughing. "You guys are really something else, y'know? I'll have to report this back to Anny. You guys... you have fun. And see if you can find your little friend with the shrimpy Eeveemon!"

Al, still feeling detached from his Conemon body, watched Winry ask the question he had in his mind, "What do you mean- what have you done to Ed?" She demanded.

Asumon just kept laughing. "Like I said, have fun."

* * *

And with that, the portal that she had conjured under Ed to send him to the Digital World opened again, this time swallowing the four humans and their Digimon.

**FMA cast in the Digital World? Oh dear, this won't end well.**

**...yeah, this chapter in general just gave me problem after problem after effing problem. I did my best with it, please don't shank me. ;o; **

**Also, if you could actually tolerate reading this chapter; see that review button down there? You should totally click it. Seriously. **


	4. Hiatus Notice

**A Notice from the Author**

Sorry, everyone, for making you wait so long on the next chapter. D: See… the few chapters were supposed to be finished ages ago… but real life has been intervening and I repeatedly find myself unable to focus on my work. ;;

So I'm taking time off to write things further (and by "write further" I mean "finish the draft of the first arc", which is about seven more chapters…), go over some past mistakes and try to improve upon them. Soooo, while the fic itself is on hiatus for a while (but it looks like it'll be a long while at this point…), _it is still being written and worked upon._ So please don't go thinking I've given up on it entirely. This fic is my baby, and I love it far too much to do that. _The Unseen Days_, however, will still be updated. I'm trying to do a chapter a month… which means two back-to-back chapters next update; three if I insist on laying around until May. xD;

Look forward to _Alchemists_ omake chapters shortly!


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